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2* AwardSnub:
3** At the time, Best Makeup at the Oscars was a "Special Citation" award that was given out twice.[[note]]For ''Film/SevenFacesOfDrLao'' and ''Film/PlanetOfTheApes1968''[[/note]] So, this film's failure to get the citation was seen as a snub. The resulting controversy was the instigator for the establishment of the Best Makeup Oscar the following year.
4** The only reason that Creator/JohnHurt not winning the Oscar doesn't count as this trope played absolutely straight is because the winner was Creator/RobertDeNiro for ''Film/RagingBull''. Hurt ''did'' win the Bafta for his work however, so his performance thankfully did not go home empty handed.
5* GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff: Quite popular in Japan, being the second-highest grossing foreign film of 1980 (behind, unsurprisingly, ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'')
6* HilariousInHindsight: The ending, which its swooping starfield and Merrick's mom narrating Tennyson's poem "Nothing Will Die", leads flawlessly into the beginning of ''Film/Dune1984'', Creator/DavidLynch's next movie!
7* MoralEventHorizon: "Sunny" Jim the Night Porter letting drunken citizens in to see and harass Merrick for both money and ForTheEvulz is rightfully deemed unforgivable by Dr. Treves when he learns of it. In the film novelization, Treves even ''tries to kill Jim'' in his outrage over it.
8* NightmareFuel:
9** While John's unconventional appearance isn't all that frightening (especially given his gentle nature), the sack he wears as a mask is a little off-putting, leaving his face underneath [[NothingIsScarier up to the imagination.]]
10** John Morris' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oZ0wu_6a9M "Elephant Man Theme"]] is already an eerie lullaby, but the unused track [[https://youtu.be/Zdm5rQaNGUw "Belgian Circus Episode"]] is straight up CircusOfFear music.
11* RetroactiveRecognition:
12** Creator/DexterFletcher is Bytes' Boy.
13** A whore is played by Creator/PaulineQuirke, who would later be best known for playing Sharon Theodopolopodous in ''Series/BirdsOfAFeather''.
14%%ZCE* SignatureScene: The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sF19L00KbAI train station scene]] where Merrick emotionally demands the mob chasing him down recognize him as a human being.
15%%ZCE* TheWoobie: John.

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